Product Director

At Ascensus, technology is more than just a solution. It powers the business that helps millions of people save for what matters—retirement, education, and healthcare.  Our technology experts tackle exciting challenges in collaborative teams, but work in an environment where individual and career development is always valued.  Technology associates leverage their talents and passion, building new and innovative platforms, creating programs founded in automation in agile frameworks, and driving existing and new markets—all of which supports the rapid growth of a dynamic industry leader.

Section 1: Position Summary

The Product Owner Chapter Lead position is a senior-level role responsible for overseeing and leading a team of Product Owners across multiple product lines.  This individual will partner with business stakeholders (internal and external) and ensure delivery of the firm’s highest priorities.

The ideal candidate will be able to demonstrate the ability to work in a fast pace agile environment and has prior experience leading other associates. This role is an integral part of the agile Program Team, partnering with technology leads to ensure maximum overall program delivery.

Section 2: Job Functions, Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Responsible for overall management of up to 15 Product Owners; oversight of  interactions with stakeholders, scrum teams, and other key contributors as well as responsibility of managing and optimizing the resource allocation to execute on the product vision and roadmap.
• Partners with key business stakeholders from various channels to ensure knowledge of requests and relative priority.
• Holds the Product Owners accountable for ensuring clear vision and goals at the start of every sprint.
• Promotes ongoing customer engagement via various methods including monthly release readouts.
• Participates in overall agile organizational assessment and advocates for alignment between Ascensus business units.
• Develops the appropriate training program for product owners to support culture of continuous learning and to ensure continued agile maturity.
• Supports Ascensus I-Client service philosophy and our Core Values of People Matter, Quality First and Integrity Always®. These should be visible in your actions on a day to day basis showing your support of our organizational culture.
• Responsible for protecting, securing, and proper handling of all confidential data held by Ascensus to ensure against unauthorized access, improper transmission, and/or unapproved disclosure of information that could result in harm to Ascensus or our clients.
• Leads overall “inspect and adapt” philosophy across all ceremonies and interactions.
• Assist with other tasks and projects as assigned

Supervision  

• Motivate, provide direction, support and mentoring to the chapter and assist team members
• Ensure policies and procedures are followed by associates
• Screen candidates for potential employment and make final hiring decisions and or recommendations for the department
• Use decision making skills to work through difficult situations in conjunction with partners and other functional units across the organization.    
• Mentor staff
• Ensure compliance with all company and industry policies and regulations
• Write and deliver performance evaluations to each chapter member
• Provide management of staff in a matrix environment

Section 3:  Experience, Skills, Knowledge Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree required
• A minimum of 12 years of business experience
• A minimum of 5 years Agile/Scrum processes and best practices preferred
• A minimum of 5 years management experience of associates
• Experience with web-based applications and interface conventions
• Proficient with MS Office:  Word, and Excel, as well as working with industry-standard and agile measurement tools: e.g. JIRA, Aha!, Sharepoint
• Familiarity with financial systems and participant transaction processing is preferred, especially retirement plans
• Strong communication skills, especially the ability to translate technical terms into business terms as well as with written documentation.
• Must be detail-oriented and analytical
• Must possess the drive to solve problems and improve inefficient processes; lead the team to think of creative/innovative solutions.
• Proven ability to quickly grasp information and independently produce results
• Demonstrated success in facilitating / leading meetings with internal stakeholders and a strong need to influence

We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer

The national average salary range for this role is  $140-160k in base pay, exclusive of any bonuses and benefits. This base salary range represents the low and high end of the salary range for this position. Actual salary offered will vary and may be above or below the range based on various factors including but not limited to location, experience, performance, and internal pay alignment. We do not anticipate that candidates hired will begin at the top of the range however, from time to time, it may occur on a case-by-case basis.  Other rewards and benefits may include: 401(k) match, Medical, Dental, Vision, Paid-Time-Off, etc.  For more information, please visit careers.ascensus.com/#Benefits. 

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